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re: Defraging with Me tool Friday, December 28, 2007 at 1:01 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) |I've used the ME defrag tool for quite a while now. |It has an option of re arranging files or not during the defrag process. |A few years back, "Carol" made a negative remark |about using the re arranging feature without commenting why. | Jack Hall Well, the more stuff you have it do, the longer it takes. (As I defrag when I'm asleep, it's a wash for me.) The additional wear & tear on the moving parts would seem to be the big downside --and that needs to be weighed against any real gains. (Does the mechanism get more wear from the maintenance process than it saves in head movement later from "poorly-located" files?) The ordering of stuff on the disk after it is done has always seemed largely arbitrary to me anyway. The feature *I* want to see in a defragger is the ability to unfragment "unmovable" file segments. ISTM, the fragmentation of other stuff within non-contiguous red sections[1] makes for the largest performance hit on a disk which is ostensibly defrag'd. [1] From time to time "dhm" will remind us here to defrag[2] IMMEDIATELY BEFORE installing anything. to avoid that kind of annomally. [2] Read: "do comprehensive disk maintenance". [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Friday, December 28, 2007 at 5:40 pm Posted by Keith Stanier (1655 messages posted) I've used ME Defrag for a number of years and I say without shadow of a doubt it works twice as fast as 98's Defrag. I Scandisk and Defrag once a week and it doesn't take long so I don't have to leave it Defraging all night. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Friday, December 28, 2007 at 7:42 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) |I've used ME Defrag for a number of years |and I say without shadow of a doubt it works twice as fast as 98's Defrag. | Keith Stanier | True. |I Scandisk and Defrag once a week and it doesn't take long | This will vary depending on the individual box / individual user. The point I was trying to make is that if you schedule things well, you never have to wait on a Windoze computer to become available again after running disk maintenance or "security" (heh) sweeps. |so I don't have to leave it Defraging all night. | When I reboot my Windoze box, it's almost always because Windoze has slowed to a crawl or has crashed.[1] I rarely voluntarily shut down my box (then have to wait for it to load Windoze). As such, I typically start any maintenance the last thing in the evening and just let it churn. So, fast or slow, it doesn't really matter to me. [1] Compare that to Linux (which almost always fails gracefully): http://www.google.com/search?q=kernel.panic+rare+BSoD http://www.google.com/search?q=Linux+kill.9+Kill.process Another note about shutting down computers: While you have to restart Windoze for the slightest tweak (REALLY STUPID DESIGN), the *only* time you MUST restart UNIX is when you replace the OS kernel (think: going from 98FE to 98SE). [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 5:09 am Posted by Keith Stanier (1655 messages posted) On Friday, December 28, 2007 at 7:42 pm, gewg_ wrote: |Another note about shutting down computers: I know Scanregw.exe makes your new rb000.cab file on a NEW day? But if you don't shutdown your computer does it still make a new backup depending on the date? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 9:59 am Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) |I know Scanregw.exe makes your new rb000.cab file on a NEW day[,] | Keith Stanier | Right. |[b]ut if you don't [shut down] your computer[,] |does it still make a new backup depending on the date? | Nope. At Startup, Windoze checks to see if this is the first try on this date and makes the backup if that is true. With the 2nd try (or subsequent tries) there is no new backup. ...and No Startup == no backup. OTOH: No tweaks requiring a restart == no need for a new (redundant) backup. BTW, whatever you did last time resulted in good blockquoting: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/post?1198892410 This time, you're back to terrible results: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/post?1198933785 [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 12:01 pm Posted by jack hall (681 messages posted) Thanks guys for all the input, but my question was whether to use the option of re-arranging files when defragging. On Friday, December 28, 2007 at 12:46 pm, jack hall wrote: >Hi all, >I've used the ME defrag tool for quite a while now. >It has an option of re arranging files or not during the defrag proccess. A few years >back, "Carol" made a negative remark about using the re arranging feature without >commenting why. >If anyone out there with knowledge can comment on the pros and cons, I'd appreciate >it. >Thanks in advance... >Jack Hall [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 12:51 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) |[...]my question was whether to use the option of re-arranging files when defragging. | jack hall If you have the time to spare, go ahead. (The computer will be useless while doing this, of course.) If you defrag during off-hours, definitely do it. In the long run, the amount of head travel will be minimized, improving access times and reducing wear (if only marginally). [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 1:37 pm Posted by jack hall (681 messages posted) gewg, good answer. Will do. thanks. ... Jack On Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 12:51 pm, gewg_ wrote: >|[...]my question was whether to use the option of re-arranging files when defragging. >| jack hall > >If you have the time to spare, go ahead. >(The computer will be useless while doing this, of course.) > >If you defrag during off-hours, definitely do it. > >In the long run, the amount of head travel will be minimized, >improving access times and reducing wear (if only marginally). [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Sunday, December 30, 2007 at 2:36 pm Posted by MartinM (7551 messages posted) mmmm . . . lateral thought . . . if you are defragging a desktop and there's a power failure you may trash either your system or some valuable data. Worth backing up data before a defrag, and I'd vote for keeping the operation as short as possible, the risk of power loss being directly proprotional to the length of the operation - if you see what I mean. So I'd skip the file re-arranging - its a second-order effect anyway. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Sunday, December 30, 2007 at 3:44 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) [...]if you are defragging a desktop and there's a power failure[,] you may trash either your system or some valuable data. MartinM It's a possibility--but a distant one: The data is **copied** to the new location first, THEN the FAT is updated. If something goes screwy before the last step, the old data remains at its original location and the old FAT entry still points to it. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Monday, December 31, 2007 at 2:56 am Posted by MartinM (7551 messages posted) Exactly so :-) [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 1:06 pm Posted by C K (6910 messages posted) ______________________________________________ > It's a possibility--but a distant one: The data is **copied** to the new location first, THEN the FAT is updated. If something goes screwy before the last step, the old data remains at its original location and the old FAT entry still points to it. ______________________________________________ This would be true on old HDD's with no cache or drives where the cache is disabled. Problem is that the drive may/will report data as being written when it hasn't so to be safe, disable the cache. Been there done that as they say.. In any unstable system I have used or worked on, I disable the HDD cache until I can determine why it is unstable and effect repairs. Of course, a power failure is going to cause FS damage that may not be recoverable anyway so any damage done due to a defrag process going on at the time will be the least of your worries anyway IME.. ;-) UPS' are cheap enough, it's a head scratcher as to why users wouldn't have one connected if their data is so valuable. Sure would cut my service calls down a lot around here since we lose power at least 3 times a year or more... :-( [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 2:32 pm Posted by Alan Masterman (462 messages posted) Hi Jack, I know this conversation's already a week old but I'd like to throw in two cents' worth. Time permitting, you should always optimise because defragmentation by itself is only half a job. Defragging will, roughly speaking, merely join up files wherever the main concentration of fragments happens to be. Full optimisation will join up the files and, in addition, relocate them so that they are placed in the optimum logical relationship to each other. One of the things a good optimiser will do, for example, is to read the DLL dependencies as it goes along and relocate the related files so that a whole application can be loaded and run with the minimum number of read passes. You don't get this benefit if you're only defragging. Those of us ancient enough to remember FAT8 and FAT16 file systems will recall the huge performance losses fragmentation used to cause under those systems... but these days the average user, with his 32-bit NT system, is inclined to overestimate its importance. On Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 12:01 pm, jack hall wrote: >Thanks guys for all the input, but my question was whether to use the option of re-arranging >files when defragging. > > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Defraging with Me tool Friday, January 4, 2008 at 10:42 am Posted by jack hall (681 messages posted) Thanks all for the input. I have everything important backed up to my second hard drive. Funny, about a year ago, with this system in place, I had my "D" drive fail. No big deal. Everything still existed on my "C" drive. A week later the "C" hard drive failed too. You want ugly, that's ugly. On Friday, December 28, 2007 at 12:46 pm, jack hall wrote: >Hi all, >I've used the ME defrag tool for quite a while now. >It has an option of re arranging files or not during the defrag proccess. A few years >back, "Carol" made a negative remark about using the re arranging feature without >commenting why. >If anyone out there with knowledge can comment on the pros and cons, I'd appreciate >it. >Thanks in advance... >Jack Hall [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum